ELECTRICITY. Some of the phenomena of electricity are manifested upon so large a scale as to be thrust upon the attention of everybody. Thus lightning, which accompanies so many showers in warm weather in almost every latitude, has always excited in some individuals a superstitious awe, as being an exhibition of supernatural agency; and probably every one feels more or less dread of it during a thunder-shower, and this for the reason that it... more...

CHAPTER I Ideas of phenomena ancient and modern, metaphysical and mechanical—Imponderables—Forces, invented and discarded—Explanations—Energy, its factors, Kinetic and Potential—Motions, kinds and transformations of—Mechanical, molecular, and atomic—Invention of Ethers, Faraday's conceptions. ‘And now we might add something concerning a most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all... more...